Series 4 of 7
Submitted by the Upper Swan Valley Historical Society. Reprinted from the Library of Congress Manuscript Division.
Gifford Pinchot, who later became chief of the U.S. Forest Service, was working for the National Forest Commission in 1896 when he traveled south through the Swan Valley with Jack Monroe, a trapper and guide. In the previous installment of the seven-part series, they had finally located the deserted cabin, baked biscuits from the flour they found, and killed two deer.
I left the carcasses on the ground and three fat hams hanging in a tree, and started for camp with the two saddles, one ham, a liver, and both hearts in my war-sack, and a good-sized piece of meat dragging behind me to leave a trail which a bear might find and follow. One did find and follow it, as we discovered the next morning; and to such purpose that the hams were shaken out of the tree, and two of them, together with one of the carcasses, had wholly disappeared. Then began one of the most beautiful pieces of woodcraft it has ever been my good fortune to see. Through a dense thicket, crossed everywhere by the trails along which the deer came in to the lick, Monroe tracked the bear, step by step, here by a smirch of blood, there by a few hairs sticking to the side of a tree, elsewhere by a disturbance of leaves and moss or the breaking of little twigs. It was exciting work, too, because neither of us could tell when we might jump the bear. Fortunately, since a shot of that kind is always an uncertain one, the bear had left the carcass and had gone off elsewhere to sleep. We dragged what was left of it back to the rest of the bait and went back to camp thoroughly happy.
Before dusk that evening, bringing the blanket with us, we returned to the bait and chose a place to watch under a great cedar. Well in sight, 50 yards away, on the other side of a brawling mountain stream, was the lick and the bait. The mosquitoes were so intolerable that I was obliged to wear over my head an empty flour sack with holes cut for the eyes and mouth, and strong gloves on my hands. Monroe was also well protected; and so we lay and peered out, one on each side of the tree, with the rifles lying beside us.
Suddenly, in the deepening dusk, from the side which I was watching, the bear came in on a lumbering gallop; a very unusual exhibition of confidence in the general safety of the surroundings. She passed the carcasses on the ground, and raised her forequarters on a fallen log, and began to smell a bit of meat which I had placed there. I fired as soon as I could get my glove and head-covering off and take a rapid sight, and was fortunate, as we found afterwards in splitting the heart into fragments. Without a sound she turned a somersault backward, and rushed, in one final burst of energy, over the trail she had followed coming in. I sprang to my feet and fired again, but shot behind her in the hurry. Then, as I came forward, I saw her lying on the ground and instantly fired a third shot, this time with better result, although the bear was already dead. Still, it was interesting enough crossing the stream on a fallen log, with cocked rifle held well forward, to see whether I had really succeeded in stopping my game for good. Then we took off the hide, working with all speed in the growing darkness, and finally lay down in our blanket and slept where we had watched.
To be continued...
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